Responsibility

• Be responsible for your actions. No one can make you behave the way you do.

• Be responsible for your thoughts. No one can make you think the way you think.

• Take ownership of your feelings. No one can make you feel good or bad.

• Be responsible for your life. No one can make you have a fulfilled or dreadful life.

• Be responsible for how you are treated. You are treated the way you allow yourself to be treated.

• Be responsible for how you treat others. No one can make you respect or disrespect him or her.

• Be responsible for your relationship with God and others. God and no one can make you love them. The choice is ultimately yours.

Ten D’s of Women Trailblazers

1. Dreamers – Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18a). You have to envision where you want to be so your actions can follow.
2. Destined – Always begin with the end in mind. Women trailblazers predetermine how they want to end their struggle and work towards ending it.
3. Driven – What's the force behind your actions - your spirit, struggles or faith?
4. Determined – Women trailblazers have the will power to carry out their mission to improve the social, economical, and educational stance of women.
5. Devoted – Whatever you do, have a passion for it. When you have a passion, you’ll work without wanting anything in return.
6. Disciplined – Women trailblazers prepare themselves to face challenges and/or obstacles.
7. Dignity – Women trailblazers think highly of themselves and present themselves with high regard and honor.
8. Diligent – Women trailblazers are perseveres. They stay on course regardless of the challenges they may face in life.
9. Daring – Women trailblazers have unshakable faith and aren't ashamed to be different.
10. Decisive – Women trailblazers do not waiver in their decisions and actions to advance the lives of all women.

You Can Have a Great Career

Do you have a great career? How do you measure your greatness? Is it measured by what you acquire or what you contribute? A great career is more than working in a profession to collect a paycheck. It’s about using your unique skills, gifts, and talents to serve (i.e., add value). And, a great career is achievable to anyone who wants one. Here are three ways to get started:

1. Take Inventory of Your Strengths - What are your current strengths and how have you added value to your clients through your place of employment or business? If you can't answer these questions with clarity or certainty, a career assessment can help you develop a framework to discover your true passion, personal, or vocational traits.
2. Develop a Contribution Plan - Once you’ve discovered your passion and strengths, create a plan to determine the contribution(s) and impact your passion and strength will make in the lives of others.
3. Invest in Your Strengths – When you invest in yourself, your strengths will come into fruition and grow stronger as you elevate others. You can read books, periodicals, take an online course, enroll in a non-credit course, or join a networking group. Just don't tell yourself you don't have time or money to invest in your greatness.

Poverty is Colorblind

When you hear the word poverty, what's the first image you see or your first thought? Women and children in an impoverished country or women with polished nails holding a sign for help? If you could help a group of women living with poverty, which group would you choose and why?

Poverty is more than having more bills at the end of the month than money. It's extreme, situational, institutional, or generational; making it difficult to create pathways to economic independence, wealth, and stability.

When we seek support or investment in our work to decrease the trend of poverty amongst women throughout the Washington region, we often receive a plethora of reasons of why we shouldn't help them because their level of poverty isn't as severe as women experiencing poverty in other countries. A local pastor stated, You haven't seen poverty until you've been to a country where people have to drink and bathe in dirty water. Now, that's poverty. What we have here (i.e., in the U.S.), isn't poverty. Does this mean we should negate our efforts to help women and children experiencing poverty in the U.S. if they have access to clean water?

When our lives are threatened by a disease, we collaborate our energy and resources to find a cure, or a way to stop it from spreading. We don't assess if one disease deserves more attention than the other because of the impact the disease may have on all humanity.

Ignoring the plight of poverty will not eradicate it, but heighten it because poverty affects all ethnicities and nationalities.

Equal, But Different

When women stop seeking validation and approval from men, their equity will grow. Some women dress seductively for men. Wear heels for the approval of men. Buy hair and make-up for men. Quit their jobs for men. Surrender their will to men who don't surrender their will to God. Live under the pretense that man knows what's best instead of God.

Should women who live subjectively to men expect equal treatment?

According to Genesis 1:26, God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and to let them have dominion over every living thing that creeps on the earth. And, according to Genesis 1:27, "God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

These verses share how God equally created men and women in His image to have dominion over the earth in our own distinctive roles. If women grasp hold of this knowledge, maybe women will seek equality through the Image of God instead of man.

Do you want to get well?

A fourteen year-old boy was stabbed to death in an effort to protect his mother from her live-in boyfriend. According to numerous sources, Prince George’s County has the highest rate of domestic violence cases in the state of Maryland; despite its recognition as one of the most affluent counties for African Americans.

The mother praised her son for his efforts to protect her when she spoke outside Potomac High School – where her son attended. She described her relationship with her live-in boyfriend as a friendship and stated, “I think sometimes you never think that helping someone will end up in this matter.” Our paraphrase, she never thought her efforts to help someone would result in her son’s death.

John Chapter 5 talks about a pool called Bethesda where sick people laid in wait for an angel to stir the pool water and whoever stepped in first would get healed from whatever disease they had. A man lying by the pool with an infirmity for thirty-eight years caught Jesus’ attention because He knew the infirmed man suffered with this condition for a long time. Jesus asked the infirmed man, “Do you want to be made well?” The infirmed man’s response, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

The debilitating health of many people lingers too long because of their beliefs and emotional strongholds. Unfortunately, many women fall prey to men who play victim of their inability to be fully engaged in society as a result of unhealed wounds or their choice to hold onto behaviors that contribute to violence. For thirty-eight years, the infirmed man waited for assistance to get in the pool of Bethesda. Jesus could have laid him in the pool, but instead, He told the man to, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” Immediately, the man was made well, he took up his bed, and he walked.

Too many women are dying by the hands of men who haven’t recognized their need to get healed. So, women please stop jeopardizing the safety and sanity of yourself and family in the name of love and salvation. You do not have the power to heal or save, but God does. And, his healing and salvation is available to anyone who needs and wants it.

Identity

Have you ever attended a special occasion and observed how individuals describe themselves? “I’m a doctor, lawyer, an accountant, or an entrepreneur." If accomplishments, titles, degrees, or material things were taken away, how would they be identified?

The social arena is inundated with individuals pretending to be something they're not. And what's startling is people who are normally content with their identity, become discontent after interacting with a new social group or environment.

The Apostle Paul was a persecutor of the followers of Christ, and was miraculously converted to a follower himself. Paul realized it was God's grace that made him who he had become - an Ambassador for Christ. As an Ambassador, Paul traveled to different countries to organize churches and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was not ashamed of being a servant of God and did not waiver in his new identity with Him.

If you have a relationship with God without titles or a series of letters behind your name, be proud to be His servant. Accomplishments without a relationship with Him are good, but their value outside His will may not hold much weight.

Praise God for who you are - His workmanship for good works preordained before the foundation of the earth (Ephesians 2:10). And walk boldly in your creation because you were fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God (Psalm 139:14).